And then, just as I’m preparing to dig a hole in the concrete floor beneath my feet, Tracey, the saviour of countless Cogs before me, emerges like Aphrodite from the sea. Her sixteen years on checkouts has given her admirable patience and rhinothick skin. She pacifies the raging customer and ushers him towards another till, returning seconds later to fix me.
The till I’m moved to is also half-dead. I wonder momentarily if this is an initiation ceremony and that in some small room upstairs video footage is rolling in CCTV cameras, with managers huddled around it (along with the missing supervisors) all falling about laughing.
I continue to take signed receipts by the dozen until a supervisor shift change, when Samantha tells me I shouldn’t be taking these at all. It’s a no-brainer—most signatures on the cards have faded. I tell-tale on Clare immediately, knowing that even if it does get back to her she’ll be too out of it to care. Samantha barely acknowledges my blame-shifting. I recall Susie telling me last week not to take signed receipts but I’ve learnt if you don’t tailor your checkout etiquette for the till captain on duty you’re asking for a lifetime on the baskets.
My mood lifts a little when the trivia-obsessed Trolley Boy stops off to collect the empty baskets at my till. He immediately makes a beeline for a young male customer and asks him straight up who directed Scarface. The customer shifts uncomfortably and moves closer to the till. Trolley Boy is no quitter, so he questions him on a different film. This time the customer gives him a mumbled answer but makes no eye contact. This is straight out of Little Britain. I suppress a giggle as the young man, still seriously uncomfortable, and still without any eye contact, unexpectedly asks Trolley Boy to name Tarantino’s last three films. Trolley Boy replies without hesitation, takes the baskets and leaves.
The new VAT reduction means colleagues have been working flat-out to change prices on shelf labels. I’m not sure how many they’ve achieved, however customers are pleasantly surprised when I announce their total bill. Even a tiny 2.5 per cent can make all the difference—it’s true, every penny does count.
Price comparison website MySupermarket.co.uk has been suggesting that this year people ought to shop around to keep their Christmas costs down. Everyone I suggest this to says that they are not going to run around a number of stores just to save a couple of pounds, particularly as their transport costs will mean it ends up costing the same.
Michelle is in today—shopping again. It’s her day off but she says she ‘needed some bits and pieces’. She comes to my till and tells me how difficult she’s finding being away from her twin three-year-old daughters and wishes she had only agreed to do two days. Her childcare arrangements aren’t working out; she has a childminder she’s not keen on. I suggest she talks to management, but she seems uncertain, makes noises about the probationary period we are on and the risk of losing our jobs. It’s a risk I’m prepared to take.
I keep serving beyond the end of my shift. Noting that there are no supervisors coming to close my till, eventually I turn to the growing crowd and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m closing after this customer, can you go around to the other till?’ indicating the adjacent basket till.
‘NO!’ yells a chic, cropped-hair-do fifty-something. ‘You are NOT going to do that. I don’t care if you are closing or going home, you WILL serve me.’ The others in the queue stare blankly to see what I’ll do. Before I get a chance to stammer a reply, the man in front of her starts to shoot orders at me. I die a slow death as he first orders me to help the old man in front of me open a bag. He then tuts loudly at my having the audacity to close my till when there are people to serve. He grabs his change from my hand and charges off like I have some unspeakable disease. I want to tell them that, while I am a mere Cog, I also have a life, home and kids to get back to. But in the manner to which I have very quickly adjusted, I say nothing. In the supermarket world, the customer is king. And so, with my head down, I serve all ten while listening to them debate my temerity as if I was no longer in the vicinity. The humiliation is complete. Eventually my cranky captain, Betty, comes over to tell me she will send relief and tells me I should have closed my till as soon as my hours were up.
I feel punched in the guts tonight. I’ve learnt the true nature of the British shopper: they know that kicking up a fuss loudly and aggressively will get results. And having an audience helps, because mobs rule. I stare longingly at the beers, wines and spirits section as I walk back through the shop.
I leave a message for Richard again, saying I need to speak to him. Betty says (unconvincingly) that she will pass it on.
As I drive in, I listen to a radio phone-in about the collapse of Woolies after ninety-nine illustrious years. Callers talk nostalgically about the bric-a-brac, mix-and-match cups and saucers, giant chocolate Dairy Milk bars and pick and mix. Why will they miss this stuff? I ask myself. It’s all available in supermarkets, anyway. Maybe that’s why Woolies collapsed—the supermarkets can now easily offer everything that made Woolworths unique.
As I walk to the supervisors’ post, I say fifteen Hail Marys, two Quranic passages and the Buddhist mantra I picked up in RE in the hope that some god, any god, may be listening. Let me not be on the basket tills, please.
The first thing that happens is Betty confronts me aggressively.
‘Did you take the till key home with you last night?’
‘No…I gave it to the guy who replaced me.’
‘Well, it’s gone missing, and you had it last.’
I say nothing, wondering where this is going.
Another till captain approaches and Betty asks her if she knows where the key is.
‘It’s hanging in the cupboard.’
Betty says nothing and looks away.
They allocate me my trolley till and, as I walk towards it, Betty tells me there’s no chair at my till. I take that to mean that I’m expected to stand for four hours, which is against health-and-safety rules on checkouts. I manage to locate a chair myself and am soon good to go. Just as I sit myself down, in front of a long line of customers, I fall ungraciously to the floor. After the last couple of days, I know that if I don’t laugh I will cry—and so I laugh hard.
I’m starting to get some regulars now. There’s a really scruffy-looking guy who comes in wearing threadbare clothes. He’s a man of few words but has said enough for me to know he has a gruff voice and a gruff attitude. But he intrigues me with his regular purchase of the New Scientist magazine. I bite the bullet and ask him if he’s a scientist. He laughs and says, ‘Do I look like a scientist?’
‘Scientists come in all shapes and sizes.’
‘I just like to keep my brain active—that’s why I read it. My work is boring manual labour.’
I chat again with the young mum who only moved here from Poland five years ago with no English. She has the strongest Cockney accent I’ve ever heard from someone who didn’t grow up in London.
Human behaviour in the supermarket demonstrates that even the friendliest customer is never really your ally and they can turn on you in a heartbeat. An amiable, elegant and chatty older woman with a deceptively uncanny resemblance to Denise Richardson, the Agony Aunt on This Morning, has a complete change of personality when she asks me about discount petrol vouchers. I indicate that I’m not sure if we are giving them out. She asks me tersely, ‘Well, do you know or don’t you?’
I have my four-week assessment today. Susie brings over the paperwork and starts to give me feedback.
‘You’re doing really well, really engaging with customers, but I’ve noticed you lack confidence.’
‘Oh really?’ I don’t like the sound of this. ‘How so?’
‘You